


Bring Him Back to Me

by SketchLockwood



Category: 15th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF, The Sunne in Splendour - Sharon Kay Penman, The White Queen (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 06:33:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2299922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SketchLockwood/pseuds/SketchLockwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecily Neville's emotional reaction after the death of her son George.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring Him Back to Me

“Mother, listen!” He stood, his height towering above all else present; trying desperately to get his mothers shifting attention. His heart sank as that moment she looked back to him with heartbreak in her usually glittering blue eyes – blue eyes so like his own, so like Bess's. “Ma mere.” He muttered the words quietly, as though he were a scared little child about to be beat once more by his father for some misgiving or poor behaviour. He hadn't used those particular words since such a time either. 

 

“Do not speak to me. I will not hear.” Her tone was haughty, addressing him without formality or a hint of respect. She did not turn to look at him as she spoke, although her pace across the room had stopped, her progress paused for only a moment to acknowledge the words said to her. Slowly she turned, curtsied deep to the figures close to the throne. Cecily Neville looked on, seeing not her son but only England’s king. A merciless fearsome man she had once known, now a stranger to her. She could not believe her blood ran in his veins. “Your Graces, I bid you good day.” She turned once more, beginning her walk back towards the imposing gold double doors sealing the great hall of Westminster Palace from the rest of the hectic careless world. 

 

“Ma mere! I beseech you!” She heard the longing in his voice, the begging not for the duchess of York and valuable peer of the realm. Not for the wife of a Yorkist lord and leader but for his mother. His mother as though he were not a almighty king but rather a small child, lost in the palace grounds once more, or frightened of the bullies which had tortured him so relentlessly in the grounds of Ludlow, almost chasing him from his precious home. 

 

She thought back to that time, tears brimming in her downcast eyes. Lids closed gently as the lashes wetted and the images flicked through her head. 

 

“ _Edward!” She and Richard had run down from the gatehouse tower. From the top, looking over Ludlow and watching their people living their daily lives. The shouts had reached their ears making them turn. The boys had gathered in the inner bailey after their literature class. Apparently tales of Gawain had been too much for their excitement that morning, for violent shouts of objection were all that could be heard. Richard had seen it, tried to react first as Edward had thrown the older boy to the floor. The son of his Tutor, John Croft, a 15 year old scholar Edward so thoroughly despised – it would not be long before she learned that._

 

 __She had beat Richard down the stairs to the inner bailey, taking hold of her sons arm before he could deliver the third blood drawing punch. Already the Croft child lay on the floor complaining of an aching nose and blood dripped from it. “Edward, my dear, tell me darling why you hurt him? Edward! Why did you hurt the boy?”  
  
“He called me a changeling ma mere!” He sounded so defenceless as he said it. The looking in his eyes pleading, begging his father not to beat him, as though it had been his only choice to beat the boy for his cruel words.  
  
“But you are not, he lies Edward and your violence was wrong.”  
  
“Aye, but wife we have learned he stands a chance against the She Wolf.”  
  
“Do not call her that!” Cecily had scolded her husband, taking her crying son in her arms as he sobbed about his actions. How recently her son had been completely innocent to battle. She knew it well, the tears now were not for hitting the boy. Ned had never been one to cry for the sake of petty violence. The tears were those of a memory not long passed, a memory she had been so reluctant he should have. The memory of St Albans. Richard's tactical blunder and lucky victory he had promised would not happen. The bloodshed her thirteen year old son had been forced to witness. 

 

Could she blame him now she wondered? Wiping the tears from her eyes she turned back. An expression of stone set upon her face. “Your pardon? Your Grace does beseech me? You beg? Upon your knees?” She watched his stillness, finally broken as he nodded. If that was what it took it was what he would do, it served to make her want to laugh. When did Kings become jesters? “You beseech me upon your knees as George, Duke of Clarence my son and your own brother begged you? Tell me your grace” She said those words with bitterness she did not think herself capable of. “Did his pleas not fall upon deaf ears?” 

 

“Duchess, my lady Cecily.” The woman's rich and precise accent pricked ears to their highest alertness. This all knew would be the ultimate battle. Even Edward sat in preparation for the epic conflict which could ensue. No one expected the words which were to come out of Elizabeth's mouth. “You can blame my husband for his actions to no avail, for it will not bring Clarence back.”   
  
The Duchess did not grant a response, except the slight humph noise which left her lips against her control. She would not pretend to like the Queen, not now when she never had. Everyone knew that she, the new she wolf after the old had been the reason for George's death. It was only with her evil words, her manipulation and her witchcraft that she had convinced poor Edward to put his own brother to death. She would have left, had Richard not barred her path. She turned back with anger; anger for Edward, anger for Richard and fury for the bitch beside her king. “You say it cannot? Can the spells which you cast to send him to his grave bring him back?”  
  
“You accuse England's queen of witchcraft? So openly madam?” Edward's voice was cold. As though he too had lost all love for the mother he once adored. She could not blame him, perhaps this was her proudest moment. For had she not taught each of her children to show no affection nor mercy for those who showed them none? 

 

“I am not the only one. You say that as an accusation sirrah. An accusation is one which is false. I state simply the truth your grace. For we al do know that  _ she  _ sent Clarence to his death. How I cannot be sure.” She crossed herself. “Only a witch can be sure of the ways and I dare not guess for it will see me in hell. Her words perhaps it was your grace, but In some way she bewitched you and forced your hand. You were such a pleasant boy. So forgiving and merciful and-”  
  
“And George tried his patience one too many times. His treason was unforgivable. Too many times my lord forgave him and it was time that the late duke did pay for his actions in the only way he could.” Elizabeth spoke, her tone pointing at her own innocence. Cecily saw it only as Edward's guilt. 

 

The more she thought on it the more it broke her heart. Edward surely would not have listened to the wants of a Lancastrian commoner of the need of life for his brother?  
  
“Elizabeth! You are not helping! Ma mere please, but Elizabeth did not bewich me as you say.”  
  
“So you chose it, free in your own decisions?”  
  
“I did not say that!”  
  
“Then she had something to do with it.”  
  
He thought for a moment, she saw the cogs of cognition working their way in his head. She waited, seeing the pained expression finally wrinkling his features. She cried, watching as she saw her king, once her son completely alone. Flailing in the water as he drowned from the tide sucking down his own weight with crushing and painful force. “Ma mere, please hear me-”  
  
“Do not call me that for I am not your mother. I am her grace the duchess of York.”  
  
“My son-”  
  
“Is a bastard, as are you. The York duchy died with his honourable grace Richard Plantagenet my husband. Later with George of Clarence. It should never have been yours or that brats.” Everyone looked to her, watching as tears welled in mothers eyes and sons. Edward slumped into the throne without a further word, the look of defeat finally taking him as it had never before. Cecily felt her heart tearing. It had been almost impossible, and as she took her leave for Fotheringhay, permanent as she knew it would be; she wondered if the sense of regret would ever finally fade?  
  
Deep in her heart she knew it would not. With one death, she had lost two most beloved sons and two beloved grandsons.  
  
Suffering would never end she knew, and so she questioned: Why would any man want to wear that cursed crown?

 


End file.
